Your night in: Every movie on Melbourne TV tonight - rated and slated
From the original bad boy of tennis to a genre-shredding parody of life as an American cop, there’s plenty of great viewing on TV screens tonight. Here’s what you should be watching.
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THE LAST SAMURAI
****
8:30 PM 7MATE
Despite its breathtaking showpiece skirmishes, there is more to this historical epic than just merely rolling out the battles. Tom Cruise stars as Captain Nathan Algren, a haunted former Civil War hero plucked from hawking guns (and swigging liquor) on the US sideshow circuit to train a modernised army in 19th century Japan. Areclusive Emperor has an immediate military target in mind for his new fighting force: the renegade Samurai warlords who control the outlying provinces with the ancient warrior’s code of Bushido. A big movie with a little something always up its sleeve.
HOT FUZZ
***
9:00 PM GO!
Another genre-shredding combo of comedy, action and horror from the makers of the magnificent 2004 zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead. Simon Pegg stars as an over-officious London cop banished to the backblocks of rural England, where he stumbles upon a suspicious series of amusingly (un)accidental deaths. Becomes quite a funny, surreally silly affair after a very slow start. Stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost.
GET CARTER
*
11:20 PM 10 BOLD
A truly rotten remake of Michael Caine’s classic 1971 UK gangster pic. Stallone staggers about the screen in a pronounced state of lobotomised anger in playing Jack Carter, a high-paid hoodlum returning to his hometown to find out why his estranged brother suddenly upped and died. While punching, sideswiping or shooting the living daylights out of everyone that earns his ire, Carter also stumbles upon a hi-tech porn ring that might have something to do with his brother’s demise. Co-starring Mickey Rourke, who in this movie has the snakeskin-boot-like complexion of a man who has stopped using a solarium and simply started microwaving himself.
FAREWELL
***1/2
9:30 PM WORLD MOVIES
A refreshingly old-fashioned political thriller, outlining the true story of an obscure chain of events credited in some circles with bringing the Cold War to an end. The year is 1981. In Moscow, a lowly KGB officer, Gregoriev (Emir Kusturica), leaks sensitive intel about Russian spies through an unlikely conduit. A calculated blend of cynical humour and ever-increasing tension pays off brilliantly in a gripping final act, where covers are blown, lives are in the balance and diplomacy begins bending to the winds of change. Good stuff.
COLD WAR
****
11:35 PM WORLD MOVIES
Fans of great international cinema should put this multiple-Oscar-nominated gem to the top of their to-watch list. A compelling, achingly moving story commences in Poland in 1949, where a middle-aged pianist, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), meets an ambitious singer in her twenties, Zula (a luminous Joanna Kulig). Despite some considerable musical and personal differences, the pair fall hard for each other, prompting Wiktor to harbour thoughts of a new and better life with Zula on the other side of the Iron Curtain. A spellbinding use of evocative music and black-and-white cinematography propels a movie of deep and lasting atmosphere. Despite an economical running time, Cold War works through a breathtaking range of emotions lived in the moment, and fateful decisions which must be lived with forevermore. A triumph for filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski (Ida).
THREE GENERATIONS
{not rated}
7:30 PM WORLD MOVIES
Not seen, therefore not rated. A synopsis for those interested: “Hoping to get support from his mother and grandmother, a New York teen prepares to transition from female to male.” Starring Elle Fanning, Susan Sarandon, Naomi Watts.
THREE MOVIE PICKS FOR STREAMING OR RENTAL
STAN AND OLLIE (PG)
***1/2
STREAM via FOXTEL, or RENT via various services
Poignant, funny and deceptively eloquent, this look at the twilight years of legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy unassumingly gets on your good side and stays there. By movie’s end, you will be sorry it has to go. It is 1953, and the Hollywood boom years for Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) have been over for quite some time. A punishing stage tour of the UK represents the ageing pair’s last chance to get noticed and get back to making movies. The hardworking Laurel is up for anything if it switches on the spotlight once more. The high-living Oliver is not quite as committed to the cause, due to ailing health and a fluctuating bank balance. The gentle pacing of the movie and the flawless work of Coogan and Reilly (whose performances of Laurel and Hardy’s timeless routines are too loving and alive to be classified as mere impersonation) combine for an incessantly delightful tip of the (bowler) hat to one of the great double-acts in showbiz history.
THE BRUCE LEE COLLECTION (M)
***
SBS ON DEMAND
All of a sudden, a sizeable stack of Bruce Lee titles have been added to the SBS online platform, where they will stay for at least the next months or so. The diminutive martial arts legend was never much of an actor, but he was one hell of a screen presence, as newcomers to his work will learn via HK-made productions such as Game of Death, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon and The Big Boss.
JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION (M)
***
DOCPLAY, or RENT via various services
This unorthodox tennis documentary eventually wins over the viewer, but only after blowing several match points en route to a stirring final set. The subject is John McEnroe at the height of his powers in the 1980s. It is during this era of the hot-tempered American’s domination of the men’s game that French filmmaker Gil de Kermadec trained his cameras on literally nothing but McEnroe. The bulk of the doco is comprised of McEnroe shot at close range in match conditions. You rarely, if ever, see his opponent. What you do see is McEnroe’s precision-tooled skill set, laid out for examination in forensic detail. It is a surprisingly beautiful, graceful sight (especially when caught in slow-motion, which is often). Unfortunately, the lyrical flow of images is synched to a not-so-lyrical narration which blathers on about the hidden links between great tennis and grand cinema. All is (almost) forgiven when the doco pivots towards a gripping climax: McEnroe’s epic 1984 French Open encounter with Ivan Lendl.